Flourishing Friendships Forever

Once you've shared your life with a dog, you can't imagine spending the rest of your days without canine companionship.  Their presence adds a sensory quality to every experience.  You find yourself looking at this world with a fresh and better perspective.  You learn to live in the moment.

This relationship, unlike any other you have, is never long enough.  Each dog in your life grows the capacity in your heart for love.  Made for Each Other: Why Dogs and People Are Perfect Partners (Crown Books For Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, January 23, 2018) written by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent with photographs by William Munoz chronicles the beginning and evolution of this exceptional bond.

Dogs and people, people and dogs---we've been buddies for thousands and thousands of years. 

In the first of three parts scientific discoveries and studies reveal dogs and wolves might have gone their separate ways as many as 27,000 years past.  This association may have started because humans offered easier access to food through garbage or perhaps communities realized wolves howled warnings when predators were near.  It is believed wolves and people may have hunted together. 

Wolves, and ultimately dogs, needed to relinquish certain habits and characteristics to reside with humans but they also retained other instincts.  Today specific dogs have specific specialties.  They will safekeep their pack, herd, hunt and retrieve. 

In the second section the affection we hold for dogs and they for us is explored.  Working with dogs and MRI machines, a doctor was able to prove a particular portion of their minds and our minds respond with happiness and love when given certain stimuli. (For dogs it's food and human family members.)  Petting dogs benefits them and us in powerful ways.  Their interpretation of human faces and our interpretation of barks and tail wagging make communication possible. 

Our time spent with dogs is constantly changing as we learn more about them.  There are doggy day care centers and day spas.  Dogs provide therapy for special needs and humans assist dogs with impairments.  Dogs and people play together, work together and love together in greater numbers than ever before in history.


Meticulous research is evident in the information provided by award-winning author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent.  She places facts within the twenty separate but combined conversations in the three parts.  Each is linked to the other in a comprehensible flow.  Here is a passage.

The Loving Touch
Doesn't it feel good to pet a dog, especially one with soft, silky fur?
Well, you're not the only one who feels good---so does the dog!
Petting a dog increases helpful hormones in both your blood and the
dog's, including oxytocin, which helps you feel relaxed, lowers your
blood pressure, and slows your heart rate.  


The front and the back of the dust jacket (I'm working with an F & G) supply readers with two portraits of dogs and younger people captivated by the company of each other.  To the left, on the back a boy dressed in a super hero costume is hugging his pooch pal who happens to be wearing a red cape.  They're both grinning.

The opening and closing endpapers are an extreme close-up of a dog's nose, whiskers and closed mouth.  Out of focus but still visible on either side are the eyes.  This is a nod to the superior senses of our canine friends.

Throughout this title the photographs of William Munoz showcase the closeness between humans and dogs and the qualities of wolves and dogs.  The images are grouped in collages, on single pages, placed as insets on single pages or span two pages.  There are comparative charts with photographs.  These photographs are fully animated, full of realism, humor and affection thereby enhancing the text. 

One of my many favorite pictures is beneath the title page for Part Two: The Science of Love.  Light is shining behind a woman holding her dog as if it is sunrise or sunset.  They are facing each other.  Both of their heads are thrown back and they are laughing.  It's a memorable moment beautifully captured by William Munoz.


Consistently one of the most popular collections is the one filled with books about dogs.  Made for Each Other: Why Dogs and People Are Perfect Partners written by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent with photographs by William Munoz will be a welcome and well-read addition to this portion of professional libraries and for personal collections at home.  A contents page, source notes for each part, additional sources (books and interviews with scientists) and an index complete this sixty-one page volume.

To discover more about Dorothy Hinshaw Patent and her other considerable body of work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  William Munoz maintains a Facebook account highlighting his work.  At the publisher's website you can view the first twelve pages including the wonderful endpapers.


Please visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by Alyson Beecher to view the titles selected this week by other bloggers participating in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

Sensing Scents

Over the last one to two years, I've noticed Xena's sense of smell seems to be on overdrive.  Her nose during our walks is constantly to the ground.  On breezy days she stands still shifting her stance with the wind's direction.  I have watched her detect the presence of an animal or certain person long before they come into view.  At night when we take our final walk around the yard, if she freezes nose in the air and starts barking we move speedily back toward safety.

We humans have come to trust the incredible sense of smell found in dogs.  Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, respected nonfiction author, has written Super Sniffers: Dog Detectives on the Job (Bloomsbury, September 2014) conveying the important work of canines and their noses.  Within four chapters, forty-eight pages, we are consistently informed and constantly astonished at their abilities.

Take a dog, any dog, for a walk along a sidewalk or in a park, and you won't be walking much---you'll be standing there holding a leash while the dog sniffs at every bush and every lamppost.  

For generations we humans have relied on dogs' noses to assist us in finding food, maintaining order in the herding of other animals and locating wounded soldiers and explosive devices during times of war.  Forty per cent more of a dog's brain is designated for smell than a human's brain.  Specific breed and temperament determine which jobs are best for which dogs.  Training to separate certain smells from others is intense but rewarding for our canine companions.  Once their skills are honed they go to places and in conditions out of the ordinary to complete their assignments.

Top on the list for these trained noses is searching for people and finding explosives.  In the case of an avalanche dogs can sniff out a human under thirteen feet of snow.  They can perceive the whiff of a human recently deceased or dead for hundreds of years.  A MWD (military working dog), known for their proficiency in operating off leash in difficult areas, usually is a teammate with the same handler for the duration of their service.  It's interesting to note dogs working with law enforcement officers live off duty with their human partner.

Pooch snoots have even found a place in protecting our planet, seeking out plants not native to a given area before they take over, scat of endangered species and polluted water.  People with special medical conditions have benefited from dogs' capabilities to smell when a hormone imbalance has happened or a dangerous allergen is present.  It's downright uncanny how their noses know when specific cancers have begun in a person's body.


Dorothy Hinshaw Patent begins each of the four chapters, Dogs And Their Amazing Noses, Searching And Saving, Helping Planet Earth and Medical Alert Dogs, with two page overviews before citing explicit examples.  The discussions of these jobs are also contained within two pages.  Patent converses with her readers offering details which increase reader understanding of what is needed and how these highly trained dogs fill that need.

In addition she chooses to focus on five individual dogs, a Specialized Search Dog in the military, a dog used to identify specific species, a dog who was slated to be put down and is now sniffing out sewage leaks, a dog who never leaves the side of a young boy with Type 1 diabetes and dog in training to smell peanuts as far as three feet away.  These introductions make the subject more personal for the reader.  Men, women and children working with and benefiting from these dogs all find a place within this title.

The color scheme shown on the front dust jacket, yellow, red and teal blue, is used throughout the book.  Colorful, up-to-date and relevant photographs are integrated into the layout and design enhancing the text.  If the background is red, the photographs will be edged in teal blue with the page heading appearing in a block of yellow. An arrow cuts into the image drawing the eye to an enlightening caption.


Super Sniffers: Dog Detectives On The Job written by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a captivating introduction into the fascinating world of dogs' smelling powers.  Not only will readers gain awareness of the topic but perhaps they might be interested enough to pursue a career as a trainer or handler.  Patent includes books and websites for Further Reading and Surfing.  Her acknowledgments identify those who helped her in the writing of this title.

For more information about Dorothy Hinshaw Patent please follow the link to her official website embedded in her name.

My review is based upon an F & G copy received from my favorite independent book store, McLean & Eakin Booksellers located in Petoskey, Michigan. My personal copy is on order there.  I hope you will purchase a copy from your local indie book store or seek one out at your local public library.


Yet again due to my participation in Alyson Beecher's 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted at her blog, Kid Lit Frenzy, my knowledge about a topic has grown.  Please follow the link to her site to read about other nonfiction titles selected by bloggers this week.